Sherry had shaved off his mustache. There was nothing in his face or voice to show that he was the least bit worried.
“I knew there was nothing more to wait for after my dream,” he drawled, “so I went away. Then, when I heard the dream had come true, I knew you johnnies would be hot after me—as if one can help his dreams—and I—ah—sought seclusion.”
He solemnly repeated his orange-tree-voice story to the sheriff and district attorney. The newspapers liked it.
He refused to map his route for us, to tell us how he had spent his time.
“No, no,” he said. “Sorry, but I shouldn’t do it. It may be I shall have to do it again some time, and it wouldn’t do to reveal my methods.”
He wouldn’t tell us where he had spent the night of the murder. We were fairly certain that he had left the train before it reached Los Angeles, though the train crew had been able to tell us nothing.
“Sorry,” he drawled. “But if you chaps don’t know where I was, how do you know that I was where the murder was?”
We had even less luck with Marcus. His formula was:
“Not understand the English very good. Ask the capitaine . I don’t know.”
The district attorney spent a lot of time walking his office floor, biting his finger nails, and telling us fiercely that the case was going to fall apart if we couldn’t prove that either Sherry or Marcus was within reach of the Kavalov house at, or shortly before or after, the time of the murder.
The sheriff was the only one of us who hadn’t a sneaky feeling that Sherry’s sleeves were loaded with assorted aces. The sheriff saw him already hanged.